


A Return

by Haberdasher



Series: Twitch Plays Pokemon [34]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Twitch Plays Pokemon (Let's Play)
Genre: Gen, Twitch Plays Emerald, Twitch Plays FireRed, Twitch Plays Pokemon, Twitch Plays Red
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2851553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A becomes Champion of Kanto and returns to Red. Final part of a trilogy with A Connection and A Mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Return

A had forgotten how exhausting putting up with the commands of the voices really was.

The journey from Pallet Town to the Hall of Fame took a little over two weeks, but that time seemed to drag on and on. She kept writing down every difference between the worlds in a journal that was quickly filled to the brim in an attempt to understand exactly what she had done wrong, but there seemed to be no method to this madness.

They left just after she had won the Championship, as expected, but though A longed to put things right as soon as possible, it wasn’t that simple. It took her several days before she had rested up enough to walk around without collapsing, and immediately after she had healed enough to achieve some level of competence, the interviews and paparazzi and challengers came over and wouldn’t leave her alone. Her every move was being watched by all the world, or so it seemed. Dealing with the chaos of holding the Championship, a level of chaos rivaled only by that of the voices, had been bad enough the first time around, and now she didn’t even have Red to talk to.

Red.

She still hadn’t found out what happened to Red after this world had been so drastically altered, though she brought up the name as often as possible in her interviews and asked everybody she met whether they knew a boy by that name. Maybe, since she had taken his place, he didn’t even exist. She missed him dearly. Had they really only met one another a few short months ago? It felt as though they had known each other forever, that Red had been her constant companion throughout her life, and his absence loomed over her and made her heart ache.

As the buzz died down, A dived into research at the Pokemon Mansion, pouring over the abandoned texts to learn all she could about how to repair the reality that she had so badly damaged. The details of the solution always seemed to come back to what exactly had caused the problem, and she still didn’t know. Her memories of that ritual from weeks ago was far too dim for her to remember any mistakes she had made, and she still couldn’t find any pattern in the changes that permeated this realm.

There was only one possibility left if she wanted a return to the world she had once known.

She could reset reality.

Reset everything, revert the world to the state it had previously held. But not a detail could be changed, not then, not ever. The world would be exactly as it was… and her quest, her suffering, would be in vain.

But it had to be done.

She sneaked out at night again, as Red’s mother- or rather, her mother- slept. None remained awake in Pallet Town at this late hour, in which the only light to be found came from the full moon; none would be able to interfere.

A had practiced various parts of the ritual beforehand- sketching out the circles, chanting under her breath, moving perfectly round rocks around her room- so it felt almost anticlimactic to enact the ritual in its entirety. Still, she gave a tight smile as she admired her work. Spirals and circles in place, round rocks facing each of the cardinal directions… and her chanting made the sigils emit a pale red light.

It was perfect. It had to be perfect. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, make the same mistake twice… right?

The light grew brighter and brighter until A had to close her eyes, and when she opened them, little was different from before. She was still on the outskirts of Pallet Town. The night was still dark and quiet. She looked all around, but still couldn’t find any changes, except… had she been quite so close to that line of trees before? And hadn’t she been facing the lab?

A ran to the beginning of Route 1, her heart pounding, barely even noticing that her frantic footsteps nearly obliterated her careful markings. She had to squint to see the wild Pokemon through the nighttime shadows, but she saw no bugs using lasers, no punching birds. The only action to be seen was a few Pidgeys kicking up gusts of wind and a lone Rattata trying desperately to tackle his airborne foes.

It all clicked. She started walking back to the home that was now both his and hers. Maybe in the morning, she’d wake up and find that all sorts of other things had gone wrong, but for now… for now, it seemed that all was well.

That’s when the tears started falling.

She wasn’t quite sure whether they were tears of joy or loss or something else entirely, but they kept pouring out no matter how hard she tried to calm them. The most she could do was turn her sobbing into a quiet sniffling as she opened the door to the home, making sure not to wake up the woman sleeping on the couch- she was Red’s mother now, as she had been before all this, though the woman had played the role of A’s mother mere hours earlier.

She tiptoed up the steps, quieted her sniffling, and moved one step at a time towards the tissue box in Red’s room, careful to avoid the spots which always made the floor creak. As she went to grab a wad of tissues to wipe against her face, A’s shaking hands let go of the tissue box, dropping it onto the floor below. The sound of its impact seemed to echo across the room.

A glanced at Red. Had he heard? No, his eyes were closed, he was still lying down, probably dreaming about his Pokemon again…

"A? Izzat you?" a voice whispered.

A froze in place. “Red?”

The boy half-opened his eyes. “You sound funny. What’s up? What time is it?”

"N-nothing happened. Go b-back to sleep."

His eyes opened wider as he sat up and looked at A’s face. “You’re crying. Why’re you crying? C’mere. Talk to me.”

A crept closer and closer to Red’s bedside until the two were side by side, her hands resting upon the bed as she crouched down so they were face-to-face. She took a few deep breaths before speaking. “Red… I… I need to tell you something. I sh-should’ve told you before, but I was scared… Before everything, before I was Champion, before I was even a Trainer… I… I summoned the voices.”

Red looked her in the eye and blinked several times rapidly. “You WHAT?”

"Shhh! Your mom’s sleeping downstairs."

"Okay, but- really? Why?"

"I thought… I thought I could control them. It was stupid of me, I know. I was wrong, so wrong. And I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d hate me for it, hate me like you hate the voices…" Her voice was still wavering.

Red placed his hands over hers, intertwining their fingers. “It’s okay. I don’t hate you, A. I could never hate you.”

"Really? I…" The tears were back now, flowing with renewed vigor. "And just now, I took them back again, I took your place, I tried to protect you from them, but I just made everything worse, and I failed, I messed up, and…"

"Shhh. Calm down. It’s okay."

"B-but it’s not okay. I… I went through Kanto with them instead of you, but then I had to reset things because everything went wrong and you were gone, and so you still had to go through it all, and I… I couldn’t save you, Red. I couldn’t save you from the voices. I tried, but it just… I couldn’t…"

A’s vision was blurred, so she wasn’t quite sure if what she thought she saw was accurate. Was that a smile on Red’s face? Was he really grinning at a time like this? No, it couldn’t be… But then, he let out a faint chuckle before saying, “You think I need to be saved?”

The room grew silent, and A could hear the distant caw of wild Pidgeys. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond. It took her several minutes of pondering before she found a way to respond. “You didn’t want the voices. You never did. I thought I could take them away, so you could live the quiet life you always wanted…”

"Don’t worry so much about me, A. It’s all over with. I’ve made my peace with it all. And maybe it’s a good thing that the voices took over me after all. You know why?"

She stared at him, and him at her. She knew her own reasons for having accepted the presence of the voices, though her recent encounter with them reminded her that the cons of their possession still far outweighed the pros. But Red… Red had never said a single positive word about the voices, about what they made him go through, not throughout all their months of talking. What could he possibly think made such an excruciating journey worthwhile?

"No. Why?"

Red’s grin- her eyes were clearing up ever so slightly, and that curved blotch she had seen on his face earlier was definitely a grin- grew wider. “If it hadn’t been for the voices, I never would have met you.”

The two entered a tight embrace, tears still rushing down A’s face. As the two clung together on that dark and quiet night, A could have sworn that one of the teardrops that dampened her face had fallen from elsewhere, from the face with reddened cheeks that now rubbed against her own.


End file.
